


Seventeen Minutes In Heaven

by d3adendsinmymind



Category: BoJack Horseman
Genre: Alcholism, Angst, Bojack Has F'ed Up, Death, Gen, Just Bojack Thoughts, Sad Ending, Spoilers, contemplating death, dark themes, sad af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 20:20:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30027294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d3adendsinmymind/pseuds/d3adendsinmymind
Summary: Seventeen minutes. He waited seventeen minutes, while Sarah Lynn's life was stolen. In those seventeen minutes, he thinks about how it all went wrong.
Kudos: 3





	Seventeen Minutes In Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Fanfiction that isn't Death Note themed lol. It was definitely a change of pace...a very, dark and sad one.
> 
> These are just basically what I imagine Bojack's thoughts were while he waited to call the ambulance...for seventeen minutes:( RIP Sarah Lynn, she deserved so much better. Spoiler warning if you haven't watched past season three haha. This episode, besides The View From Halfway Down, destroyed me. 
> 
> Thanks to my sibling for the suggestion!
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this work, and don't cry too much. I'm eager to read your thoughts:)

He knew he should go back. He felt like he should go back. He didn’t want to helplessly wait by his car while she was dying. He wanted something to do, he needed something to do. He couldn’t handle his wailing thoughts.

But what could he do now? He had screamed, and cried, and jostled, and attempted to breath air back into the dying girl’s mouth. She wouldn’t move, she wouldn’t speak. She lie on that dirty planetarium floor like a mannequin. Her skin was cold and pale, and her lips were drawn into an eternal frown. No, the damage had already been done. The only thing he could do now was wait. 

So, wait he did. He sat under the black night sky and watched the stars lively twinkle from overhead. Like, they were mocking him. They could shine so bright, despite all of the rot and darkness. The cool night air felt frigid to his over-heated skin, and he felt like he was being pelted with tiny little knives. Knives that pierced his soul. He kicked at the wheel of his battered car, and wondered if he should take another drink. He should, because how could he deal with this sober? When was the last time he had dealt with anything sober? When was the last time he had BEEN sober? He picked at a tear in his grey suit jacket and wrenched open the door, watching a multitude of glass bottles tumble down onto the pavement. His medicine. His salvation. The only thing that had ever made sense in his life. 

With shaking fingers, he picked the clear vodka bottle off of the ground. The letters on the front blurred in his vision and he hastily raised it to his mouth to take an indulgent gulp. The burning liquid courage soured his mouth, but as it slid down his throat he was once again filled with euphoria. The jumbled and gargled music that was constantly trilling inside of his ears straightened out and became a smooth melody. He took an unsteady step back and closed his eyes, letting the warmness swirl around his chest. How could the only thing that helped him be the very thing that was destroying him? Hm, he’d have to take another drink to think about that. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. It had been fun, too fun. She wasn’t supposed to die. No, that wasn’t what Bojack had wanted. Everything in his life had just been too…bleak. He had lost his oscar nomination, which hadn’t of even been real in the first place. Everyone had left him alone, including Diane because she had decided that writing Instagram captions for celebrities was a more valuable use of her time than staying with him. Todd had found out about his betrayal, and had finally stopped believing in him. The one person who he had thought would never leave him, had slammed the door right in his face. Sleeping with Emily was a shitty thing to do, but had he really deserved everything the man in the yellow beanie that he had said? Was he really too fucked to be saved? He knew the answer to that, and took another swig.

All he had wanted to do was party. Because parties were fun. They helped him forget. They helped him focus on the high, the good parts of life. Sarah Lynn hadn’t of been his first choice, because he knew the girl had been sober. He knew that he should’ve known better, and stayed away. But his television daughter had said she was only going cold turkey because she wanted a break. She wanted her tolerance to die, so that the next time would be heavenly. She hadn’t planned on staying good, not forever. She was the only one who understood him in that way, he had known she would be the only one to make it better. Despite everything he had done to her, she still hadn’t of left. That’s why he had called her. Because maybe, maybe she was one of the last genuine connections he had left. She would never turn another party away, she would never turn him away.

She should’ve turned him away though. Maybe she couldn’t. Being an addict himself, he knew Sarah Lynn as much as he knew himself. Horsin’ around had done something to them both, it had changed them for the worst. Deep down inside of his tar black soul, he knew that it hadn’t of changed him as much as it had changed Sarah Lynn. 

Bojack had always been broken. When he was younger, he had ignored it. He had pretended he could be something different. He dreamed that he would be able to be a star. He had dreamed that he would be secretariat, that with his talent and charms he could make something of his wretched existence. Perhaps once upon a time he had thought he could be some other young child’s secretariat. That he could bring joy into their lives, and give them a purpose. Had he been Sarah Lynn’s secretariat?

He grimaced, laying his head down to rest upon his cars foggy and cold window. His legs ached from standing upright, but he couldn’t sit down. He wasn’t so naive as to claim that he hadn’t of ruined Sarah Lynn. Especially now. If she had had a better role model in her life, she wouldn’t be dead. If she had had someone to give her hope, instead of a way out, she might still be alive. Bojack should’ve never been allowed to be put on a pedestal by those younger than him. He should’ve never been given that power to be viewed as some kind of hero, an idol. No one should want to be like him. HE didn’t even want to be like him. 

Sarah Lynn had followed him down the rabbit hole, because she hadn’t of known any better. She was just a starry eyed child with freckles who was looking for a purpose. She had found the wrong one. She had thought he was an icon, someone to look up to. She had been forced into the spotlight, and had tried to make the best of it. She had attempted to be happy, he supposed. She had tried to survive.

That was the problem with Hollywoo, though. No one could ever be happy inside of the poisonous trap. It was too much, and too little. It turned dreams into nightmares, and it warped a person’s very soul. All of the stars and beautiful people, they were just regular ol’ shmucks trying to run from their own problems. Hollywoo was a distraction, it was a way to make broken souls who had dreams of hope feel better about themselves for a short while. It was like a drug. The adoration, the praise, the money, the importance, it changed a person. It made you crave the validation and cheer from strangers, because it seemed to be the only thing you were made for. And if your fans wanted more, how could you deny them? You didn’t want the only people who saw the good in you to just leave. You turned into a mere puppet, your strings were controlled by everyone but yourself. The beautiful people would sacrifice whatever it took to keep the show going. Because if there was no audience, the performance couldn’t exist. No wanted wanted to let go, they wanted to ride that high forever. Once you taste heaven, it would be hell to let it go.

Sarah Lynn had wanted to keep the show going. But her energy must’ve run out at some point. Hadn’t she of said she wanted to be an architect? Well, it didn’t matter now. Maybe it never did. She had been chosen, and once you were chosen for fame one could never back out. Well, you could. But who would want to? She had had a choice: to find a quiet life or to keep hearing the cheers. And after what he had told her so long ago, the choice must have been obvious. Everyone would leave her but her fans. No one cared about her, but her fans. They were her children that she had to nurture. And the only way she knew how to do so was to forget.

Bojack never knew when the first time was the she had first tasted drugs, and now it was too late to ask. He knew that she had drank vodka, his vodka, when she was ten years old. She must’ve understood him that day. She must’ve known how hollow and destroyed he was, and she must’ve figured out how he survived with that feeling. She had found out the tricks, and medicated herself in the same way. 

The medication wasn’t helping him now, though. All he could do was stare up at the sky and THINK. How long had it been? He checked his phone screen, which had somehow become cracked. He didn’t know when that had happened, but everything in his life always ended up broken somehow. Five minutes. It had been five minutes since he had dialed the brunette girl’s phone with shaking hands and called himself. The silence had filled the air for about two minutes, what would look like a conversation to the police was just Bojack mouthing empty apologies to the corpse in front of him. Sarah Lynn hadn’t of accepted his sorries. 

Now more than ever, he wished that his sorries had been accepted. He wished he could wake up in a cold sweat, and find that it was the nineties again. He wished he could go back and save her. He wished he could tell her to run from Los Angeles. This horror show should’ve never been given to someone so innocent. He wished he could tell her that he was a monster, a beast that she should never want to model. He wished that he could’ve told her that just because his life was ruined, didn’t mean her’s had to be.

Why was he still alive? Why hadn’t he died tonight? He had had the heroin too. He had let that fine white powder swoosh through his nostrils. He had felt it run through his veins and seep into his bones. He had felt his own mind become dull, and blank. He had experienced the same white noise and nothingness that she had, but he had come back. Maybe Sarah Lynn hadn’t fought it. Maybe she had known death was creeping upon her, and she had shut her eyes to welcome it. Maybe this was God punishing him, and letting him come back to earth to witness all of the destruction he had caused. Maybe the broken pieces of his heart were there to remind him of who he was and what he had done. The show wasn’t over for him yet, but he almost wished he could yank the curtains down by force.

Should he run back in there to join her? The urge to do so struck him like a freight train, and he bit his lip nervously. Would that be the only way to redeem himself? After everything he had done? Should he bite the bullet now, so to speak, and go on to whatever lie ahead?

He scuffed his foot on the ground, as that familiar fear filled him. No, no he couldn’t die. Not yet. He still had more life to live, he still had to become a god person. He had to fix himself before he passed on. He didn’t want to just be remembered as Bojack Horseman, the horse from Horsin Around who made everyone’s lives miserable. He wanted to be remembered favorably.

And if he was truly honest with himself, he was afraid of death. He was afraid of dyeing and waking up to nothingness. he was afraid of loosing everything. He had never really believed in a higher power, or that anything lie in wait after the grave. But what if he was wrong?

No, no he was too afraid of the darkness. Of the punishment he might receive. What if death was somehow worst than life? He knew, logically, that death was unavoidable. But he was cling on to consciousness for as long as he could. He didn’t want to join Sarah Lynn, not yet. That blackness could consume her soul, but not his. so this was just him, being a selfish bastard like always. Oh well, he blew out a breath of cold air, she should’ve expected this. No one escapes having known him unscathed. He’ll ruin everyone, eventually.

The poison inside of himself is much like an addiction, too. Something so, so wrong that he just cannot give up. 

He continued to stand there, letting the clock tick by. Letting the stench of death grow worst. He let it consume him, he let it choke him.

He never would’ve imagined this was how they would end up. He never would’ve thought that one day he would inadvertently kill his television daughter, the small brunette with the cherub cheeks and freckled face. He never would’ve thought that those wide blue eyes would close forever, and right in front of him. She had laid on his shoulder as she had died. He was the last thing that she had ever known. Just regret and darkness and poison. That had been what had comforted her in her last few moments. What a waste. It made him sick, and he clutched his stomach, but nothing came out. The rot was left inside, to fester and destroy. It would never come out.

As he thought about those blue eyes, he realized that they had lost their sparkle long ago. Long before she had had a chance to change herself, to grow into herself. he thought the light that was once inside her must have died much earlier on then she had once claimed. The fans, and producers, and vultures around her had ate her soul before she had had a chance to stop the,m. In a way, she had never had a real chance.

Eleven minutes. He would arrive at the planetarium in five minutes, and then take a minute to ‘discover’ her body and then call for help. She had to wait for six more minutes to be found. 

He hoped that she would have a nice funeral. He had always found the practice to be more for the living than the deceased. Because, if one was dead, why would they care about what coffin they were buried in or what color roses were laid around them? Funerals were usually a dull fair, and mostly pointless. there was no closure to be had in celebrating a death, or watching a loved on be lowered into the ground. But Sarah Lynn deserved to be celebrated. She deserved to be memorialized, to be remembered. Even though most of Hollwoo would forget her face the day after they had posted tweets mourned her death, he would never forget her. Maybe others would just see another broken child star who had wasted their life on booze and pills, but he would never see Sarah Lynn as a failure. He saw himself when he looked at her. He saw something more, maybe something that could’ve been more.

Foolishly, for a moment he wished that somehow he could’ve saved her. He replayed all of their interactions in his mind, and wished that there could’ve been something he could’ve said that would’ve changed everything. Maybe if he had been a better person, she would’ve been too.

But no, he wasn’t her savior.

Her mother would probably cry. She’d produce crocodile tears of the cameras, and then turn around and wipe them away. She’d be eager to collect Sarah Lynn’s money and capitalize off of this tragedy. She’d want there to be documentaries, and after death tributes. If she could, she’d probably try to get shirts with the dead girl’s face splashed across the front. How distasteful, he wrinkled her nose.

This really was all of her mother’s fault. She had been the one to force this life on Sarah Lynn. Her mother reminded him of his, in a way. Nothing was ever good enough, and one had to prove their worth to be deemed important. If parents were to be burdened with children, which they had chosen to have by the way, then those unfortunate babes must make their parents proud no matter the cost. No matter what, you wouldn’t stop dancing. Until the curtain closed.

Which now it had. It was all over.

Maybe death would be kinder to her tortured soul. At least she’d have no one to sing for, no one to please.

Fourteen minutes.

He drained the last of his drink, and let it burn a hole inside of his heart. 

He felt colder, he felt the loss so deeply in his bones that they ached. God, why did she have to die? Why had he let her do heroin? Why had he kept it? All of these questions, he did not have the answer to. He just wobbled unsteadily on his feet. 

Goodbye, Sarah Lynn. Goodbye to everything that she was, and could’ve been. Goodbye to the pain, and goodbye to the suffering. He looked up at the dark sky, the twinkling stars still shining. He imagined he saw one move, and thought maybe it was Sarah Lynn. Maybe she was now a star, one that could never be hurt again. 

Seventeen minutes. He walked towards the planetarium.


End file.
